Towards an exhibition on nuclear physics and cultural
heritage
Alessandro Pascolini Brussels 29 July 2006
Exhibition:
a coordinated series of events in a defined space and at an assigned time, with a specific aim and a
selected target,
built on a collection of
communication materials
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Aim:
•The exhibition cannot be a
generic presentation, but must have a specific objective to
“pass a message”, which can be wide, but well defined
•Never “all you have to know
on this subject”
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Contents:
• ordered in a logical structure
• the actual presentation
reflects the logical structure
Target:
• It has to be clear
• It fixes style, language,
communication means
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Targets:
•Fellow scientists of different fields
•School students
•Industrial/economic communities
•Artistic/cultural groups
•General public
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Visitors:
•Have to be respected for their interest in our exhibition
•Must be culturally provoked
•Their basic knowledge has to be taken into account
• Never put in an inferiority condition
• The flow has to be organized
How many visitors make the exhibition worthwhile?
•an exhibition for special targets has to effectively
reach its targets and fulfill its aim
•exhibitions for general public
must cost less than 4 euro per
visitor
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Visitors’ rights:
• Be in a safe environment • Leave at every moment
• Organize their own visit • Guided, when requested • Look at details
• Fly at high speed • Rest
• Be critical
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Visite guidate
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Time:
•Dates chosen to accommodate the target
•Coupling (or decoupling) with other cultural, scientific, social events
•Dates to optimize media’s attention
•Dates to optimize political
Time length:
• According to foreseen visitors’
frequency
• Consistent with the budget
• Consistent with the availability
of scientific assistants
Time constraints:
•Opening date is fixed
•Be [nearly] in-time for opening •Work out and keep a strict
time-scale of production
The venue:
• Suited to the contents
• Contents according to space
• Easy to reach
• Where people naturally go
• Where art exhibitions are held
• Not too low
• With all necessary services
• Without security problem
• Space for visitors’ activities
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Space:
•The shaping of the exhibition has to be worked out with an architect from the very
beginning
•The environment may be
exploited in the communication project or denied in order to
have the exhibition in a
vacuum
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Space - exploited:
• It might be useful to take advantage of the physical
environment and to include it in the exhibition itself
• The architecture of the
building, when left in view,
dictates that of the exhibition
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Space - denied:
• When the environment is at
odds with the exhibition, you have to obscure it
• Traveling exhibitions have to be produced to remain
independent of the
environment in order to fit in a
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Own structures:
• Tend
• Containers
• Can be drop in common places
• Their installation a promotion event in itself
• A way to reach people not
“interested”
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Projections outside:
•Special materials outside the exhibition venue
•Where the people gather:
plazas, markets, parks, pedestrian districts…
•To provoke curiosity
•To promote attention
•For advertisement
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Space:
• Remind to keep it clean and
friendly
Light:
• It is one determinant of the exhibition
• It structures space
• It determines the colors
• It organizes the attention of the visitor
• Text can be written with light
• Daylight can be exploited in its variation - but is delicate
• Artificial light is completely under
control
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Sound:
•It has to be integrated in the sounds of the exhibition
•Special spots of sound and silence convey message
•Avoid interference of different sound sources
•Remind that exhibitions are
social and convivial and
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Communication materials:
• A unique strategy of
communication integrating a panoply of means
• Texts /catalogue • Images
• Objects
• Audiovisuals • Internet
• Art show
• Human interface
Communication materials:
• Present concepts more than objects
• Materials should be starting
points for exploring a world of
ideas
An exhibition should transform existing knowledge
• addition
• emergence
• progressive differentiation
• disassociation
• re-contextualization
• merging
• development of personal
theories
Style:
• Lightness - il faut être léger comme l’oiseau, et non
comme la plume
• Exactness - le bon Dieu est dans le détail
• Rapidity
• Visibility
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Text:
• “in principium there were posters”
• After inflation, text and image decouple
- independent uses
- avoiding graphic interference
• It becomes part of the scenery
• Strict collaboration with
architect and graphic designer
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Text:
• Has to be essential, suited to target
• Multi-level, with different levels of information in case of non
homogeneous visitors
• All text written by the same person with a unique style
• Checked and revised by a “standard”
visitor
• remind:
Everything has to be made as simple as possible, but not more [Albert Einstein]
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Images:
• Need to present images of the invisible
• The microscopic world is
not present in the common imagery
• There is no authority fixing the difficult iconography
• Theoretical concepts have to
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Images:
•
Their power and persistence
•
Their redundancy
•
They evoke and provoke
•
Self explanatory/mysterious - alchemists’ mutus liber
•
Danger of conveying wrong
imagery
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Immgini vive
evocazione
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coerenza
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Objects:
•
Witnesses of reality
•
Allow comparisons
•
Can enter in “sound and light” presentations
•
Their “mise en scène” is critical
•
Critically delicate objects
exhibit
Objects:
• Historical instruments
• Prototypes
• Models
• Tools for research
• Peaces of art and of cultural heritage
• Interactive exhibits
• Reconstruction of real labs and
Aula antica
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Interactive exhibits:
• Safe, strong, effective, suited to the target and to the
visitors’ flow
• Cosmic ray detectors
• Radioactivity detectors
• Spectrometers
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Audiovisuals:
• Special productions for the exhibition
• Interactive audiovisuals
• State-of-the art presentation
• Part of the scenery
- multi screen presentation - unusual size presentations
• Very short non-interactive
Lanterna magica
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Internet:
• Presented as a working tool for research
• Contacts with physicists at work at distant labs
• Creation of a local network at
disposal of visitors for exchanging information and comments
• Problems of control
Art show:
• Art inspired by nuclear science
• Comic strips
• Designs
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Human interface:
• Essential to integrate the various communication means and give personalized information
• Can elicit curiosity, provoke attention, suggest questions
• Makes science human
• Collects reactions and criticism
• Young physicists convey enthusiasm and speak the language of the
youngsters
• Senior scientists can tell stories and overcame cultural divides
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Human interface:
•
Allows and provokes conversation
•
Presents the intermediate
phase which transforms data and observations in
explanations
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Human interface:
•
Creates direct contacts
between the local physicists and the community
•
Allows creation of
permanent educational
activities
Involvement of visitors:
•
Presentation of materials prepared by students
•
Students’ contest
•
Drawing corners for younger visitors
•
Book of comments
•
Computer and camera for leaving messages
- be prepared to surprises
•
